Meizhou Eats: Restaurants
Besides eating the amazing salt-baked chicken (盐焗鸡) all by myself, I had a few other eating adventures in my couple of days here. This post is about more sit-down types of restaurants.
Alley Fresh Seafood Restaurant 巷子深鱼鲜馆 (Xiàngzi shēn yúxiān guǎn)
Address: 广东省梅州市梅江区华星·华景豪庭2号 (No. 2, Huaxing·Huajinghaoting, Meijiang District, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province)
After arriving in Meizhou from Fujian, I checked into my hotel, and tried to figure out some things about whether it would be possible to visit my grandfather’s ancestral home, but then I realized that I needed to get a move on lunch because restaurants might close soon for afternoon break.
I found a place near the hotel, which specialized in seafood.
The nautical theme certainly spoke to the seafood offering! With the life preservers and other details, it took me to an American seafood restaurant vibe; I was kind of in the mood for something like clam chowder!
The restaurant’s signature dish was sashimi, but the platters were huge; definitely not for a solo diner.
The server directly recommended either fish head soup with rice noodles (鱼头煮粉) or fish head soup with wheat noodles (鱼头煮面). She said, “Solo diner, don’t make things too complicated.” I went with the one with rice noodles, because that seemed a bit more “southern” perhaps.
First out came a little plate of peanuts, to tide over the hunger while waiting, I suppose.
Then came the fish head soup with rice noodles. This came in a huge bowl, and between that and being given a ladle rather than a soup spoon, I wonder if this was meant for more than one portion! I’m not sure what the shredded herbs on top were, but they were very strong in aroma.
There was a decent amount of fish meat in the bowl, along with some napa cabbage, and kind of kinky rice noodles. All in a delicate broth.
客家厅 Hakka Restaurant, within the Federal Hotel (联邦酒店)
Address: 广东省梅州市梅江区江南东山大桥南端联邦广场 (Federal Square, South End of Jiangnan Dongshan Bridge, Meijiang District, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province)
Soon after lunch, I got in touch with a distant cousin of my mother’s (via her cousin in the US who contacted another cousin in China who contacted him!), who said that I could visit my grandfather’s ancestral home, where he was living! After that visit, he, his wife, another cousin (his younger sister), and her husband, took me out to dinner. This was so kind of them!
They brought me to the restaurant of Federal Hotel. Funny enough, I had been choosing between the Federal Hotel and the one I ended up staying at! It’s the pink building on the right.
The restaurant inside is called Hakka Restaurant.
The fancy interior at first didn’t look so full, but many of the tables seemed to be reserved. And indeed, after a short while, the dining room became full. Including the table adjacent to ours, where a party of classmates of the uncle sat. So this was really a destination for locals!
The first dish was so interesting. Nongfu yumi geng (农夫鱼米羹) guess it could be translated as “Farmer’s fish rice stew.” I guess the yumi (鱼米) are those stubby noodles, made of fish. Their texture was quite soft, not springy or chewy like fish balls. All in this thick clear soup.
We also had beef ho fun (干炒牛河) which was pretty standard.
I loved this dish, the ginger oil chicken (姜油鸡). The moist meat was buried under the ginger, which maybe was fried? I thought the chicken was so flavorful, but the others said it was a bit salty for them. I guess this shows the kind of flavor I like!
The others said the lettuce (白灼生菜) was rather greasy. On this I agreed with them.
They also ordered a couple dim sum. One was the white and fluffy kind of char siu bao (蜜汁叉烧包), and the other was this leek dumpling (香煎韭菜饺).
Here’s the inside of it. The dumpling was quite large!
Finally, we had this braised and steamed pork belly over matsutake mushrooms (茶树菇扣肉). The classic version of this Hakka dish has the braised and steamed pork belly served over preserved mustard greens (梅菜扣肉). The aunt said that she liked it better with the preserved mustard greens, but perhaps it’s not so common to find anymore perhaps because it’s more labor intensive?
All in all, this dinner was a treat!
梅城金苑酒家·客家菜名店 Meicheng Jinyuan Restaurant·Hakka Restaurant
Address: 梅县区人民南路335号 (Meixian District Renmin South Road No. 335)
The next day, I had that amazing salt-baked chicken (盐焗鸡) as a late lunch, but I still wanted to squeeze in another meal before I left the next day. I found this restaurant browsing the review app Dazhong Dianping (大众点评). It was maybe a 15-20 minute taxi ride towards the western part of town, a rather new part of town (and appearing quite like many other areas of China).
The interior was very brightly lit, and had a kind of faux traditional look which I’ve seen recently on my travels.
This one was particularly commercial though; the entry area even featured a freezer of their mass-produced items! I really dislike mass-produced steamed buns; those “pleats” on top are so fake! I think they’re formed by extrusion.
Even arriving at almost 7:45pm (a late hour for dinner, by Chinese standards), there was a bit of a wait for a table. But one came soon enough.
On Dazhong Dianping, some of the pictures showed that several dishes could be ordered as small portions. This was one of the reasons why I was excited to come here. As a solo diner, i could order more dishes and not waste food, So I was dismayed that the menu didn’t have that as an option anymore. I asked the server, and she said that indeed they discontinued the small portions. She took my order; but then when I checked the ticket, she was able to put the order through. She said that she asked about it, perhaps with a manager? And they said to allow me to order the small portions. I really think that this should be a standard option, broadly across restaurants!
The first dish I ordered was the “客都四喜丸.” These were four varieties of a kind of chewy ball. (The regular portion size has four balls of each flavor, rather than my small order of two per each flavor.)
This was a green vegetable one. Mayyybe mustard greens?
This one had kind of rice noodles in it?
This one was made of shredded daikon. The flavor was very, very, strongly daikon. A bit too strong for me.
This one was all meat. It’s hard to describe the texture, but it was kind of like loosely packed inside of Chinese sausage.
I also ordered a small portion of their stone pot stuffed tofu made of self-ground soy (石锅自磨酿豆腐). “Small portion”! It was still a huge portion. I can’t imagine what regular portion is like.
I really wanted to order this dish in Meizhou, because this is also one of the classic Hakka dishes. The story is that the Hakka people, who came to this region from Central China, wanted to make dumplings but didn’t have the wheat of their original homes. So they stuffed tofu instead of wheat wrappers.
This dish even had whole soy beans underneath the stuffed tofu.
It was also a very nice dish, but I’m not sure if this version is so superior compared to the way other Chinese restaurants make it in other parts of the world?
Overall, I spent less than 48 hours in Meizhou, but I’m glad I got to fit in several memorable meals. Next post will be about the street snack food of Meizhou!
